The Desert Spear

by Peter V. Brett

  “When the dama’ting came for you, how many times did she throw the dice?”

  The drillmaster glanced at him. “Once. They only ever throw once. The dice never lie.”

  Jardir wanted to say more, but they turned a corner and Dama Khevat was waiting for him. Khevat was the harshest of Jardir’s instructors, the one who had called him the son of camel’s piss and thrown him into the waste pits for his insolence.

  The drillmaster put a hand on Jardir’s shoulder. “Mind your tongue if you would keep it, boy,” he muttered.

  “Everam be with you,” Khevat greeted them. The drillmaster bowed, and Jardir did the same. A nod from the dama, and Qeran turned on his heel and vanished.

  Khevat ushered Jardir into a small, windowless room filled with sheaves of paper and smelling of ink and lamp oil. It seemed a place more suited to a khaffit or a woman, but even here the bones of men filled the room. They formed the seat Jardir was directed to, and the desk Khevat sat behind. Even the sheaves of paper were held down by skulls.

  “You continue to surprise me, son of Hoshkamin,” Khevat said. “I did not believe you when you said you would win glory enough for you and your father both, but you seem determined to prove me wrong.”

  Jardir shrugged. “I have only done as any warrior would do.”

  Khevat chuckled. “The warriors I have known are not so modest. A kill wholly your own and five assists, at what? Thirteen?”

  “Twelve,” Jardir said.

  “Twelve,” Khevat repeated. “And you helped Moshkama die last night. Few nie’Sharum would have the heart for that.”

  “It was his time,” Jardir said.

  “Indeed,” Khevat said. “Moshkama had no sons. As his brother in death, it will fall to you to bleach his bones for Sharik Hora.”

  Jardir bowed. “I am honored.”

  “Your dama’ting came to me last night,” Khevat said.

  Jardir looked up eagerly. “I am to lose my bido?”

  Khevat shook his head. “You are too young, she says. Returning you to alagai’sharak without further training and time to grow will only cost the Kaji a warrior.”

  “I am not afraid to die,” Jardir said, “if that is inevera.”

  “Spoken like a true Sharum,” Khevat said, “but it is not that simple. You are denied the Maze by her decree until you are older.”

  Jardir scowled. “So I must return to the Kaji’sharaj in shame after standing among men?”

  The dama shook his head. “The law is clear on that. No boy who sees the Sharum pavilion is permitted to return to the sharaj.”

  “But if I cannot go there, and I cannot stand with the men…,” Jardir began, and suddenly the depth of his predicament became clear.

  “I…will become khaffit?” he asked, stark terror overcoming him for the first time in his life. His fear of the dama’ting was nothing compared to this. He felt the blood leave his face as he remembered the sight of Abban begging for his life.

  I will die first, he thought. I will attack the first dal’Sharum I see, and give him no choice but to kill me. Better dead than khaffit.

  “No,” the dama said, and Jardir felt his heart begin to beat again. “Perhaps such things do not matter to the dama’ting, since even the lowliest khaffit is above a woman, but I will see no warrior fall so low when his every challenge has been met. Since the time of Shar’Dama Ka, no boy who has shed alagai blood in the Maze has been refused the black. The dama’ting dishonors us all with her decree, and handmaiden of Everam or not, she is only a woman, and cannot understand what that would do to the hearts of all Sharum.”

  “Then what will become of me?” Jardir asked.

  “You will be taken into Sharik Hora,” Khevat said. “I have already spoken to Damaji Amadeveram. With his blessing, not even the dama’ting can deny you that.”

  “I am to become a cleric?” Jardir asked. He tried to mask his displeasure, but his voice cracked, and he knew he had failed.

  Khevat chuckled. “No, boy, your destiny is still the Maze, but you will train here with us until you are ready. Study hard, and you may make kai’Sharum while others your age still wear bidos.”

  “This will be your cell,” Khevat said, leading Jardir to a chamber deep in the bowels of Sharik Hora. The room was a ten-by-ten square cut into the sandstone with a hard cot in one corner. There was a heavy wooden door, but it had no latch or bar. The only light came from a lamp in the corridor, filtering through the barred window in the door. Compared to the communal space and stone floor of the Kaji’sharaj, even this would have seemed luxury, if not for the shame that brought him here, and the pleasures of the Kaji pavilion that he was denied.

  “You will fast here and excise the demons from your mind,” Khevat said. “Your training begins on the morrow.” He left, his footsteps receding in the hall until all was silent.

  Jardir fell upon the cot, crossing his arms in front of him to support his head. But lying on his stomach made him think of Hasik, and rage and shame flared in him until it became unbearable. He leapt to his feet and grasped the cot, shouting as he smashed it against the wall. He threw it down, kicking the wood and tearing the cloth until he stood panting and hoarse amid a pile of splinters and thread.

  Suddenly realizing what he had done, Jardir straightened, but there was no response to his commotion. He swept the wreckage into a corner and began a sharukin. The practiced series of sharusahk movements centered him as no prayer ever could.

  The events of the last week swirled around him. Abban was khaffit now. Jardir felt shame at that, but he embraced the feeling, and saw the truth beneath. Abban had been khaffit all along, and Hannu Pash had shown it. Jardir had delayed Everam’s will, but he had not stopped it. No man could.

  Inevera, he thought, and embraced the loss.

  He thought of the glory and elation at killing demons in the Maze, and accepted that it might be many years before he could feel such joy again. The dice had spoken.

  Inevera.

  He thought again of Hasik, but it was not inevera. There, he had failed. He had been a fool to drink couzi in the Maze. A fool to trust Hasik. A fool to lower his guard.

  The pain of his body and the passing of blood he had already embraced. Even the humiliation. He had seen other boys in sharaj mounted, and could embrace the feeling. What he could not embrace was the fact that even now Hasik strutted among the dal’Sharum thinking he had won, that Jardir was broken.

  Jardir scowled. Perhaps I am broken, he conceded silently, but broken bones heal stronger, and I will have my day in the sun.

  Night came, signaled only by the extinguishing of the lamp in the hall, leaving his cell in utter blackness. Jardir didn’t mind the dark. No wards in the world could match those of Sharik Hora, and even without them, the spirits of warriors without number guarded the temple. Any alagai setting foot in this hallowed place would be burned away as if it had seen the sun.

  Jardir could not have slept even if he had wanted to, so he continued his sharukin, repeating the movements over and over until they were a part of him, as natural as breathing.

  When the door of his cell creaked open, Jardir was instantly aware. Recalling his first night in the Kaji’sharaj, he slipped silently to the side of the door in the darkness and assumed a fighting stance. If the nie’dama sought to give him a similar welcome, it would be to their regret.

  “If I wished you harm, I would not have sent you here for training,” said a familiar woman’s voice. A red light sprang to life, illuminating the dama’ting he had met the night before. She held a small flame demon skull, carved with wards that glowed fiercely in the darkness. The light found her already staring right into his eyes, as if she had known where he stood all along.

  “You didn’t send me here,” Jardir dared to say. “You told Dama Khevat to send me back to the Kaji’sharaj in shame!”

  “As I knew he would never do,” the dama’ting said, ignoring his accusatory tone. “Nor would he have made you khaffit. The only path le
ft to him was to send you here.”

  “Without honor,” Jardir said, clenching his fists.

  “In safety!” the dama’ting hissed, raising the alagai skull. The wards flared brighter, and a gout of flame coughed from its maw. Jardir felt the flash of heat on his face and recoiled.

  “Do not presume to judge me, nie’Sharum,” the dama’ting said. “I will act as I think best, and you will do as you are bidden.”

  Jardir felt his back strike the wall, and realized he could retreat no farther. He nodded.

  “Learn everything you can in your time here,” she commanded as she left. “Sharak Ka is coming.”

  The words struck Jardir like a physical blow. Sharak Ka. The final battle was coming, and he would fight in it. All his worldly concerns vanished in that instant, as she closed the door and left him in darkness once more.

  The lamp in the hall flickered back to life after some time, and there was a light tap at the door. Jardir opened it to Khevat’s youngest son, Ashan. He was a slender boy, clad in a bido that extended upward to wrap over one shoulder, marking him as nie’dama, a cleric in training. He wore a white veil over his mouth, and Jardir knew that meant he was in his first year of training, when nie’dama were not allowed to speak.

  The boy nodded in greeting, then took in the wreckage of the cot in the corner. He winked and gave a slight bow, as if Jardir had somehow passed a secret test. Ashan jerked his head down the hall, then headed that way himself. Jardir took his meaning and followed.

  They came to a wide chamber with a floor of polished marble. Dozens of dama and nie’dama, perhaps every one in the tribe, stood there, feet planted, practicing the sharukin. The boy waved a hand for Jardir to follow, and the two took their places in the nie lines, joining in the slow dance, bodies flowing from pose to pose, the entire room breathing in unison.

  There were many forms Jardir was unfamiliar with, and the experience was quite unlike the brutal lessons to which he was accustomed, where Qeran and Kaval shouted curses at the boys, whipping any whose form was not perfect, and demanding that they flow faster and faster still. The dama practiced in silence, their only instruction watching the lead dama and one another. Jardir thought the clerics pampered and weak.

  After an hour, the session ended. Immediately a buzz of conversation started as the dama broke into clusters and left the room. Jardir’s companion signaled him to remain, and they clustered with the other nie’dama.

  “You have a new brother,” Dama Khevat told the boys, gesturing to Jardir. “With only twelve years under his bido, Jardir, son of Hoshkamin, has alagai blood on his hands. He will stay and learn the ways of the dama until the dama’ting deem him old enough to don his blacks.”

  The other boys nodded silently, bowing to Jardir.

  “Ashan,” the dama called. “Jardir will need help with his sharusahk. You will teach him.” Ashan nodded.

  Jardir snorted. A nie’dama? Teach him? Ashan was no older than he was, and Jardir waited ahead of boys years his senior in the nie’Sharum gruel line.

  “You feel you need no instruction?” Khevat asked.

  “No, of course not, honored dama,” Jardir said quickly, bowing to the cleric.

  “But you feel Ashan is not worthy to instruct you?” Khevat pressed. “After all, he is only nie’dama, a novice not yet old enough to speak, and you have stood with men in alagai’sharak.”

  Jardir shrugged helplessly, feeling that very thing, but fearing a trap.

  “Very well,” Khevat said. “You will spar with Ashan. When you defeat him, I will assign you a more worthy instructor.”

  The other novices backed away, forming a ring on the polished marble floor. Ashan stood in its center and bowed to Jardir.

  Jardir cast one last glance at Dama Khevat, then bowed in return. “Apologies, Ashan,” he said as they closed, “but I must defeat you.”

  Ashan said nothing, assuming a sharusahk battle stance. Jardir did likewise, and Khevat clapped his hands.

  “Begin!” the dama called.

  Jardir shot forward, his stiffened fingers going for Ashan’s throat. The move would put the boy out of the fight quickly, yet do no permanent harm.

  But Ashan surprised him, pivoting smoothly from Jardir’s path and delivering a kick to his side that sent him sprawling.

  Jardir rolled quickly to his feet, cursing himself for underestimating the boy. He came in again, his defenses set, and feinted a punch to Ashan’s jaw. When the boy moved to block, Jardir spun, feinting an elbow jab to his opposite kidney. Again Ashan shifted, positioning himself correctly, and Jardir spun back again, delivering the real blow—a leg sweep that he would complement with an elbow to the chest, putting the nie’dama flat on his back.

  But the leg Jardir meant to sweep was not where it was supposed to be, and his kick met only air. Ashan caught his leg, using Jardir’s own strength against him as he followed through with the exact move Jardir had planned. As Jardir fell, Ashan drove an elbow into his chest that blasted the breath from him. He hit the marble floor hard, banging his head, but was moving to rise before he felt the pain. He would not allow himself to be defeated!

  Before he had set his hands and feet, though, they were kicked out from under him. He hit the floor again and felt a foot pin the small of his back. His flailing left leg was caught, as was his right arm, and Ashan pulled hard, threatening to twist the limbs from their sockets.

  Jardir screamed, his eyes blurring in pain. He embraced the feeling, and when his vision cleared, he caught a glimpse of a dama’ting, watching him from the shadowed arch to the hall.

  She shook her veiled head and walked away.

  Deep in the bowels of Sharik Hora, Jardir could not tell night from day. He slept when the dama told him to sleep, ate when they gave him food, and followed their commands in between. There were a handful of dal’Sharum in the temple as well, training to be kai’Sharum, but no nie’Sharum save him. He was the least of the least, and when he thought of how those who had once leapt to his commands, Shanjat and Jurim and the others, might be losing their bidos even now, the shame threatened to overwhelm him.

  For the first year, he was Ashan’s shadow. Without uttering a sound, the nie’dama taught Jardir what he needed to survive among the clerics. When to pray, when to kneel, how to bow, and how to fight.

  Jardir had severely underestimated the fighting skills of the dama. They might be denied the spear, but the least of them was a match for any two dal’Sharum in the art of the empty hand.

  But combat was something Jardir understood. He threw himself into the training, losing his shame in the endlessly flowing forms. Even after the lamps were extinguished each night, Jardir practiced the sharukin for hours in the darkness of his tiny cell.

  After the tanners had taken Moshkama’s skin, Jardir and Ashan took the body and boiled it in oil, fishing out the bones and bleaching them in the sun atop the bone minarets that climbed into the desert sky. The jiwah’Sharum had filled three tear bottles over his body, and these were mixed with the lacquer they used to paint the bones before laying them out for the artisans. Moshkama’s bones and the tears of his mourners would add to the glory of Sharik Hora, and Jardir dreamed of the day he, too, would become one with the holy temple.

  There were other tasks, less satisfying, less honorable. He spent hours each day learning to speak on paper, using a stick to copy the words of the Evejah into a box of sand as he recited them aloud. It seemed a useless art, unfit for a warrior, but Jardir heeded the dama’ting’s words and worked hard, mastering the letters quickly. From there he learned mathematics, history, philosophy, and finally warding. This, he devoured hungrily. Anything that might hurt or hinder the alagai received his utter devotion.

  Drillmaster Qeran came several times a week, spending hours honing Jardir’s spearwork, while the dama loremasters taught him tactics and the history of war dating back to the time of the Deliverer.

  “War is more than prowess on the field,” Dama Khevat said. “The Evej
ah tells us that war is, at its crux, deception.”

  “Deception?” Jardir asked.

  Khevat nodded. “As you might feint with your spear, so too must the wise leader misdirect his foe before battle is ever joined. When strong, he must appear weak. When weak, he must seem ready to fight. When near enough to strike, he must seem too far to threaten. When regrouping, he must make his enemies believe attack is imminent. It is thus he makes the enemy waste their strength while husbanding his own.”

  Jardir cocked his head. “Is it not more honorable to meet the enemy head-on?”

  “We did not build the Great Maze so that we could sally forth and meet the alagai head-on,” Khevat said. “There is no greater honor than victory, and to achieve victory, you must seize every advantage, great and small. This is the essence of war, and war is the essence of all things, from the lowest khaffit haggling in the bazaar to the Andrah hearing petitions in his palace.”

  “I understand,” Jardir said.

  “Deceit depends on secrecy,” Khevat went on. “If spies can learn of your deceptions, they take away all your strength. A great leader must hold his deceit so close that even his inner circle and sometimes even he himself does not think on it until the time to strike.”

  “But why make war at all, Dama?” Jardir dared to ask.

  “Eh?” Khevat replied.

  “We are all Everam’s children,” Jardir said. “The enemy is the alagai. We need every man to stand against him, yet we kill one another under the sun every day.” Khevat looked at him, and Jardir was not sure if the dama was annoyed or pleased with the question.

  “Unity,” the dama replied at last. “In war men stand together, and it is that collective power that makes them strong. In the words of Kaji himself during his conquest of the green lands, Unity is worth any price of blood. Against the night and Nie’s untold legions, better a hundred thousand men standing together than a hundred million cowering by themselves. Remember that always, Ahmann.”

  Jardir bowed. “I will, Dama.”

  CHAPTER 5